By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Job creation seems to be foremost on America’s mind this year and in his recent State of the Union address, President Obama looked to small business to help create those jobs. Therefore, to help small business help the nation, the White House announced a new initiative called Startup America.

Chaired by AOL cofounder Steve Case, Startup America is an independent private sector alliance whose mission is to create jobs (and therefore stimulate the economy) by focusing on three areas:

  1. To expand and open new community-based entrepreneurship accelerator programs and encourage experienced mentors to support startups. Also, encourage relationships with big business as either customers or investors of startups and small businesses.
  2. To identify resources to help expand entrepreneurship education programs across the country.
  3. To increase the education programs committed to commercializing ideas and supporting regional accelerator programs.

Startup America will receive startup funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation and work closely with the White House to bring top entrepreneurs, investors and foundations together. So far the partnership includes Intel, HP, IBM, Facebook and others.

When he announced the initiative, Case said, “America’s story has been forged in large part by entrepreneurs who have against great odds created innovative products and services that have changed the world – and created millions of jobs. Our nation once again looks to these creative risk-takers to unleash the next wave of American innovation.”

To learn more, you can visit the White House website or the Startup America Partnership website.